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Samstag, 31. März 2012

The Stupidity of 1% vs. The Genius

This (mostly unknown) Essay from Albert Einstein is as valid in its
fundamental critique on capitalism as it has been 1949 when it first
appeared in the "Monthly Review".

It is from a time when socialism as an idea and as a word, has not been
discredited by decades of anticomunist propaganda and its abuse by
totalitarian demagogues i.e. in the soviet union or china.

My guess is that this aspect of Einsteins personality as a vocal
follower of socialism was (and still is) embarrassing for the ruling
elites that made use of his mind and celebrated his genius. His
brilliant mind did not limit itself to solving the mysteries of nature
but, of cause, was riddled by the complexities of human societies also.
Especially this paragraph describes exactly the problem that we are
facing in all western democracies today:

"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands,
partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because
technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage
the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller
ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private
capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even
by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the
members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely
financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all
practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The
consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact
sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of
the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists
inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of
information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult,
and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to
come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his
political rights."
Albert Einstein

A political class that keeps its people in the dark about the availability of nuclear weapons to the german airforce over decades is certainly more then willing to keep you also in the dark about the origin and purpose of financial weapons of mass destruction, which are currently not only wrecking the european currency, but also everything what used to be known as european social advance.

KABOOM!

Über mich

"Stable order is always provisional and
threatened by complexity. We should finally start thinking that we all
live on the edge of chaos. For this reason, if they were truly digested,
the theories of complexity and chaos could change our way of seeing
what happens in our cultures.They lead us to mistrust all the
totalising and totalitarian conceptions which have the pretension of
telling us with certainty what the world will be like and which
therefore supply us with the instruments to dominate as we may please –
or to help us submit to those who, in their opinion, will dominate us.
Living on the edge of chaos is also an aesthetic choice: the acceptance of living joyously with the unpredictable,
the new and the unknown. Rather than being simply the humiliation of
our arrogance, it is the renunciation of the imaginary "regular income"
of determinism and the transformation of our uncertainties into a
genuine wealth to help us to survive."

Keeling Kurve

Dynastic Cycle

Institute of Computergraphics TU Wien

Hierachy of Complexity

Seitenaufrufe im vergangenen Monat

Roessler Attraktor

"Real economics is the study of how people transform nature to meet their needs," said Charles Hall, professor of systems ecology at SUNY-ESF and organizer of both gatherings in Syracuse. "Neoclassical economics is inconsistent with the laws of thermodynamics."